Bonaventure's Metaphysics Of The Good
by Ilia Delio
The high middle ages were a time of change and transition, marked by the religious discovery of the universe and a new awareness of the position of the human person in the universe. In the 12th century, a Dionysian awakening coupled with the rediscovery of Plato's Timaeus gave rise to a new view of the cosmos.(1) Louis Dupre has described the Platonic revival of that century as the turn to a "new self-consciousness."(2) In view of the new awakening of the 12th century, the question of metaphysical principles that supported created reality, traditionally the quest of the philosophers, began to be challenged by Christian writers. Of course it was not as if any one writer set out to overturn classical metaphysics; however, the significance of the Incarnation posed a major challenge. It may seem odd that a barely educated young man could upset an established philosophical tradition, but Francis of Assisi succeeded in doing so. As Dupre points out, Francis's devotion to Jesus of Nazareth, the individual, opened up a new perspective on the unique particularity of the person. If the Image of all images is an individual, then the primary significance of individual form no longer consists in disclosing a universal reality beyond itself. Indeed, the universal itself ultimately refers to the singular. With Francis of Assisi a religious revolution began, in which the ontological priority of the universal would eventually be overthrown.(3)
The person who grasped the metaphysical implications of Francis's christocentric spirituality was the theologian and Minister General, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (ca. 1217-1274). Trained at the University of Paris, Bonaventure knew the writings of Plato and Aristotle quite well. The main source of his Neoplatonism, however, was not the Neoplatonists per se but the writings of Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionysius from whom he derived the notion of God as the self-diffusive good.
Bonaventure's most outstanding achievement, which has been virtually overlooked, is his development of a theological metaphysics. As Zachary Hayes has shown, Bonaventure's theology of the Word enabled him to concentrate on the Word of God as the principle of universal intelligibility.(4) Identifying metaphysics as the task of unifying all of finite reality to one first principle who is origin, exemplar, and final end, Bonaventure perceived the quest of the philosopher to be fulfilled when the exemplar of all else is identified with the one divine essence.(5) For Bonaventure, the exemplar is Jesus Christ, and only in light of exemplarity is the deepest nature of created reality unlocked for the philosopher. Without Christian revelation the philosopher is unable to reduce reality to a first principle.
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Taken from: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6404/is_2_60/ai_n28733514/
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